


A Hawk From A Handsaw

by asocialfauxpas (fuzzytomato)



Category: Teen Wolf (TV)
Genre: Hallucinations, Hopeful Ending, Hurt/Comfort, M/M, Mental Instability, spoilers for season 3b
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-10-15
Updated: 2013-10-15
Packaged: 2017-12-29 06:19:56
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,128
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1002006
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/fuzzytomato/pseuds/asocialfauxpas
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>"I am but mad north-north-west: when the wind is southerly I know a hawk from a handsaw." - Hamlet</p><p>Stiles is in trouble. Derek comes back.</p>
            </blockquote>





	A Hawk From A Handsaw

**Author's Note:**

> Inspired by spoilers from NYCC regarding Stiles' character arc in Season 3b. The title is from Shakespeare's Hamlet. thank you to secondstar, eldee, and venivincere for the encouragement and the beta.

The call comes at four in the morning on a Wednesday. 

Derek blinks at his phone, recognizes the Beacon Hills area code, but not the number and half-thinks about tossing the phone back on the floor, rolling over into the scratchy and musty-smelling hotel sheets. He’s been gone five weeks, burned rubber with Cora out of that disastrous hell-hole of a town, and doesn’t want to be dragged back in. 

He doesn’t. He doesn’t. He doesn’t. 

He answers the call. 

Scott’s voice comes over the line. He sounds different, scared, panicked in a way that, even when facing down Deucalion and Jennifer at the same time, wasn’t there. Derek picks up sounds in the background, can’t place them, wonders why Scott is calling from an unrecognizable number before dawn on a school day. 

“Derek? Is that you?”

“What do you want?”

Cora’s breathing hitches. She stirs for a moment in the bed on the other side of the room before rolling over, pulling the blankets over her head and settling back in. She snores softly in the dim neon light spilling through the blinds from the “Vacancy” sign.

“Have you been talking to Stiles?”

Derek falls back on his pillow, phone pressed to his ear. He rubs a hand over his eyes. 

“Why?”

Scott _growls_. It’s deep and throaty and irritated and in his mind’s eye Derek can see Scott’s eyes flash red, his jaw clench in frustration.

“Answer the question. Have you been talking to Stiles? Calling? Texting? Anything?”

Derek doesn’t entertain why Scott is asking, can’t, won’t, doesn’t want to think about something going on back there in the town that did nothing for him but show him how fucked life can be. But something is tugging in his chest, a loyalty, a duty to a kid that wouldn’t let him die from a wolfsbane bullet or drown in a pool, and he doesn’t hang up, answers the question with a tightness in his throat that wasn’t there a few minutes before.

“No.”

If there is anyone that Derek would have been interested in staying in touch with, it is Stiles, but there have been no overtures, nothing, just a few nights of scrolling through the contacts on his phone, his thumb hovering over Stiles’ number, and the stifling inability to press send. Stiles hasn’t contacted him either and Derek doesn’t know if it is because he isn’t interested or knows that Derek needs time, needs to get away, and is respecting that choice. 

Stiles understands history, regret, pain and knows that picking at a wound only keeps it opened and stains your fingertips with blood. And maybe he understands that it is time for Derek to heal.

“Fuck!” Scott whispers. His voice cracks. “Fuck. Fuck. Fuck.”

Derek sits up, the sheets pooling around his waist. “What’s going on?”

“Huh?” Scott says, like he forgot he was on the phone. “Oh, nothing. Nothing you’d be interested in.”

“Is Stiles okay?” Something squeezes in Derek’s chest. He waits for Scott’s answer, suddenly needing Scott’s answer to be ‘yes’ beyond anything else.

Scott sighs and it’s weary, defeated, _anxious_. “No.”

Derek swings his feet over the side of the bed. The carpet is cool under them. He grabs his jeans from the day before from their heap on the floor, pulls them on over his boxers, buckles the belt while his shoulder keeps the phone next to his ear. 

“I can be there in a day,” he says, tossing his bag on the bed and throwing shit into it without hesitation. 

Scott makes a noise of relief. “Good. That would be… good.”

Derek hangs up, moves around the hotel room in the dark, picking his way around the ugly uniform furniture. They’d only been there for the night anyway, on their way to anywhere and nowhere both at once. He picks up his things, tries to keep his movements light, his breathing even, his heart from stuttering on every beat with worry. 

Cora is awake despite his efforts.

“We’re going back?” she slurs.

“I’m going back. For a while.”

She pushes the mound of her sheets onto the floor. “We’re going back.”

Derek nods, takes the declaration for what it is. Cora doesn’t want to be left alone, or she doesn’t want to lose Derek again or she doesn’t want to be left behind. He doesn’t know which one it is because they haven’t gotten that far, haven’t really talked in the weeks they’ve been crawling across the country except to pick at each other over stupid things, but he’s good with it, good accepting whatever Cora wants to give him. 

“Get your stuff. We’re leaving in thirty.”

-

The journey back is manic. Derek drives, and the car eats up miles, blows down roads at ill-advised speeds because his foot is lead and worry is gnawing at his core, sharp teeth tearing into the flesh of his thoughts.

Cora sleeps. They switch when Derek’s hands start to shake and his blinking becomes slow with fatigue.

He sits in the passenger’s seat and watches his phone. It doesn’t ring again but he gets a text from who he assumes is Lydia.

It just says: hurry.

-

They pull into Beacon County in the small hours of Friday morning. 

The trees lining the road bend over it, sway in the light breeze, their branches tangling together and blocking out the clear night. Derek spies the moon between the cluttered limbs. It hangs waxing in the sky, pulling on Derek’s veins as it edges toward full. The nearer they get to the city, the more Derek feels like the world is closing in around him, like he can’t breathe because the air is so thick with his mistakes. 

Cora feels it too, pats his hand that is gripping the steering wheel, the leather creaking beneath his fingers. 

Derek texts Scott when they pull past the city limits. Scott texts back surprisingly quickly for as late it is, which is not a good sign judging by Cora’s frown and the skip of Derek’s heart. Scott tells them to come to the Stilinski house. 

Derek swings the car into the driveway. He realizes they haven’t eaten in several hours. He hasn’t showered in a day. He runs a hand over his face and the scruff rakes across his palm. He’s not really presentable at all, but Stiles has seen him worse, seen him cut open and bleeding, has seen him with fangs and claws, has seen him impulsive and ready to kill. A little stubble is nothing. 

Cora follows him out of the car and together they ascend the stairs to the Stilinski door. 

Derek raises his hand to knock but the door swings open and Isaac is standing there. He grabs Derek’s wrist, pulls him in with a hearty, “Glad you are here.” Something Derek wasn’t expecting at all.

Cora steps in serenely, hands in her pockets, unbothered, eyebrow quirked. 

Derek wishes he were so unflappable. 

The Sheriff is in the kitchen hunched over a cup of coffee. He looks up as Derek enters. He looks haggard, aged in a way that speaks of sleepless nights and paternal worry. It makes Derek’s heart spike. 

“Scott is with him upstairs.”

“What’s going on?” Derek asks. It’s the question that has plagued him since Scott’s phone call, one he didn’t want to voice, because if it isn’t spoken, it isn’t real, and the worst only exists in Derek’s mind and not in some plausible reality.

“No one’s told you?”

Derek shrugs.

Isaac’s eyes go wide. “You don’t know but you came anyway?”

Derek shifts, stares at a spot on the wall that looks like a crayon drawing someone tried to cover up with cheap paint. He keeps his expression neutral. 

“Scott said to come,” he replies carefully. It’s Stiles. Of course he had come. He couldn’t say that though, not with the Sheriff’s sharp eyes watching him, a knowing look burrowing into his chest and searching the fragments of his soul.

“Is he your alpha now?” Isaac asks, crossing his arms over his chest and leaning against the door frame. 

Derek’s brow furrows. Irritation itches under his skin and he can feel the want to let his fangs down and his claws curl spread through him. He wants to run and howl, has since they saw the sign for _Beacon Hills Population 424,858_ , but he takes the hit because honestly Isaac has quite a few more to give before they are close to even.

Cora steps closer to Derek’s side and the heat of her calms him somewhat.

“Maybe you should tell us what is going on?” she says serenely.

Isaac’s gaze flickers over her and she mimics his posture, nonchalantly aggressive. 

It’s wasting time and Derek can hear something now, the sound permeating through the tense atmosphere, and it’s coming from up the stairs, from Stiles’ room. It’s the sound of a rhythmic step, a chant of incomprehensible words, an agitated flurry of paper.

“Stiles has…” The Sheriff trails off. He swipes a hand over his face. “He’s not doing well.”

“Not doing well?”

“Stiles has gone insane,” Isaac clarifies. 

The Sheriff wilts and Derek stiffens when he doesn’t deny it, doesn’t protest. 

Derek wants to make a joke, crack a line about how _Stiles wasn’t already?_ Or something like _you’re just noticing now?_ because surely they don’t mean it. 

Nothing in their heartbeats lie though and now Derek can really hear what is going on upstairs, the frantic walk, the murmuring, Scott’s low voice trying to offer comfort.

“Stiles asks for you sometimes,” Sheriff Stilinski says. “Scott seems to think you might be able to help.”

“I don’t know how.” Derek feels useless on good days. He doesn’t know where this misplaced faith comes from, but reminds himself not to conflate faith with desperation. 

They must be truly desperate. 

There is a shout from upstairs, Stiles’ voice, raw and sharp. The door on the landing opens and Scott steps out, looks down. 

“Is Derek here yet?”

“I’m here,” Derek answers. 

Scott’s shoulders slump in exhaustion. “Get up here.”

Derek shrugs out of his leather jacket, hands it off to Cora, brushes by Isaac with a little more force than necessary, and climbs the stairs. 

At the top, Scott puts a hand on Derek’s chest. “He’s not well.”

“I’ve heard.”

“Just so you’re ready.”

Scott pushes the door open to Stiles’ room and Derek follows him inside. 

The first thing Derek notices is the mess. The walls are a map of papers and photographs and pictures of mythological beasts. There are lines drawn in red, connecting concepts to words and back again. There are older, faded lines, that are sharp and true, and there are newer lines, shaky, meandering. Papers are scattered all over the floor in patterns of blue and black ink and when Derek looks closer he sees symbols upon symbols that don’t make any sense and he sees one frightening page that is just the words _wake up_ written over and over and over….

Stiles stands in the midst of it, back to them, facing the wall, black marker in his hand, long fingers stained with ink and specks of blood. He looks thin, much thinner than he did five weeks ago, his jeans held up by the jut of his hips and a belt cinched tight around his waist, his Beacon Hills lacrosse t-shirt hanging on him like scarecrow’s clothes.

“Stiles,” Scott says with false cheer, “Derek is here!”

Stiles doesn’t acknowledge them for a long moment, arms hanging listless at his sides, marker dangling between his fingers. “I know a hawk from a handsaw but not from a harpy,” he mutters several times in succession. It makes Derek shiver.

Scott elbows Derek in the side and Derek grunts.

He takes a breath, inhaling the stale scent of the room, the heavy smell of ink, the tangier smells of sweat and fear. 

“Stiles,” he says. 

Stiles stills from his restless sway. He turns slowly until he is facing them.

His eyes are wide and bloodshot. His hair a tangled mess, sticking up in clumps, his cheeks so sharp he looks gaunt and pale in the lamplight. His bloodless lips quirk up at the corners in a sinister imitation of a smile.

“Derek?” he asks. His voice creaks and clicks like he has spent days screaming. “That you?”

“Yeah. It’s me.”

Suddenly, Stiles’ mood flips, like someone pressed the wrong button. His mouth turns up into a sneer and he steps forward, pushes his hands against Derek’s chest, shoves him back, pushes and pushes and pushes until Derek is stumbling out of the room and against the hallway wall. 

“You shouldn’t be here,” Stiles snaps. He points a shaking finger and gulps. “You shouldn’t be here.”

He slams the door in Derek’s face.

-

Scott comes out an hour later. Sheriff Stilinski has gone to bed. Isaac left to go home to the McCalls. Cora is asleep in the guest room. 

Derek sits on the couch, hands laced, forearms on his knees. 

Scott sinks down beside him. 

“Sorry about that.”

“Is he okay?” Derek winces at his inane question, but Scott doesn’t seem to notice.

“He’s asleep. Well, no, he’s passed out from exhaustion and will be that way for a couple of hours before he is up again.”

Scott slumps into the couch cushions, yawns so wide his jaw cracks. 

“What happened?”

“It started with the Nemeton.”

Derek should’ve known. He feels the blame settle hard into his stomach and he aches with guilt down to his bones. 

“Stiles started hallucinating, seeing things. It was just once or twice a week at first, then it got worse and worse and now… now he hasn’t been lucid in thirty-six hours. He won’t eat. He won’t sleep. We try to slip him pills to calm him down, but even like this he’s too smart for his own fucking good.”

Derek stays tense on the edge of the couch despite Scott sprawling more and more over the cushions, eyelids drooping. 

“Why did you call me?”

“He thinks he’s been talking to you. He says your name, says he sees things about you. They scare him sometimes and others… other times it calms him down.”

Derek is at a loss. “I haven’t.”

“I know,” Scott says. There is no judgment in his reply. “You don’t have to stay now. We can take care of him. We just thought… maybe….”

Derek doesn’t respond. Scott trails off, eyes fluttering closed as he slips into a light doze, head tipped back on the arm of the couch, one leg hanging off the edge. 

Derek stands, maneuvers Scott into a more comfortable position and grabs the afghan draped across the back and throws it over him. Scott mumbles a _thanks, man_ before settling in, curling up on his side.

Derek looks up the stairs, knows he won’t be able to sleep, and he needs to see Stiles one more time before he makes any decisions about where he and Cora are headed next. 

Derek trails his hand along the wooden railing as he climbs the stairs quietly. He stands in front of Stiles’ door for a few minutes, wondering what he is doing, fighting with himself over what he does and doesn’t owe Stiles. In the end, he opens the door. 

Stiles is on his bed, twitching and muttering in his sleep. Derek approaches warily, watches, sees the tense line of Stiles’ shoulders even in rest, the dark bruise-like circles around his eyes. He looks like a ghost, pale and haunted, a vision out of Derek’s nightmares. 

Derek sits on the edge of Stiles’ bed, reaches out and places a hand on Stiles’ leg, feels the muscles flexing beneath his hand, hears the fast rabbit-beat of Stiles’ heart.

Stiles opens his eyes groggily. He blinks for a few minutes in the moonlight.

“Derek?” he asks softly.

“Yeah.”

“That really you or is that the other you? The fake you.”

“I could ask you the same question.”

Stiles manages a weak chuckle and Derek’s fingers tighten on Stiles’ calf, the fabric of Stiles’ jeans coarse and stiff under his fingertips.

Stiles pushes himself up on his elbows and looks around the room. He looks concerned and shifts around on the bed to look at his handiwork. 

“At least I’m industrious when I’m crazy.”

“Don’t say that,” Derek says. 

“What? That I’m crazy?” Stiles lifts an eyebrow. He shifts to sitting and moves close to Derek, their knees touching. “Dude, I know you just got here, but I apparently bought a one way ticket to crazy town.”

Derek’s throat tightens. “I saw.”

Stiles looks down, wiggles his fingers, and watches them like they are foreign objects. The nails are torn down to the quick, bloody and scabbed and they look fucking painful. Stiles isn’t ashamed, at least he doesn’t show it. He has accepted this as part of his reality and it makes Derek _hurt_. “Yeah. Thanks for coming. I guess Scott called you?”

“He did.”

“Thanks. I would’ve, earlier, I mean I was planning on it, but I was giving you space. Figured you left Beacon Hills for a reason.”

Stiles is warm at Derek’s side. He smells like teenager and his heart hasn’t slowed down but he’s lucid, intact. Derek has only been back for three hours, and he has no idea how long he is staying, but he already knows that this moment is one that he’ll keep locked away, etched in his thoughts.

“I knew that.”

“I knew that you did.”

They stay silent for a moment. Stiles fiddles next to him, picks at his fingers, and Derek can’t help it, can’t help that he reaches out and wraps his fingers around Stiles’ hand. Their clasped hands rest on Stiles’ thigh. Derek wants to say it’s because he doesn’t want Stiles hurting himself further, but in actuality, he needs this, needs the physical contact and the knowledge that Stiles won’t float away. 

“You should rest,” Derek says into the stillness. 

Stiles shakes his head. “No, I need to see my dad. Let him know I’m still in here somewhere.”

“Okay. What do you need me to do? How can I help you?”

Stiles’ grip tightens on Derek’s hand and he looks at Derek, eyes wide and pleading. He swallows. “Be real,” he whispers. “Just be real.”

“I can do that.”

“Good.” Stiles moves awkwardly on the bed, pats Derek’s shoulder with the hand that isn’t currently clasping Derek’s own. “Good. Thanks.”

“You’re welcome.”

Derek helps Stiles to his feet and Stiles wobbles like a newborn foal and leans into Derek’s side. He smiles though, shaky and wan, but smiles, and to Derek it’s like the sunrise.

**Author's Note:**

> Here I am on [Tumblr](http://asocialfauxpas.tumblr.com/)


End file.
